“Dare, it’s good to see you and Meat here and in one piece,” Bear Lowry said. Maverick nodded in agreement with the Old Timer who also was one of the club’s founders. Bear had served as the secretary/treasurer for years because Dare and Doc trusted him implicitly, not to mention he had a damn good head on his shoulder for investments.
The guys on either side of Meat, whose real name was Craig Miles, clapped him on the shoulder, and he gave a nod. The night of the attack, Haven’s father had shot Meat point-blank in the abdomen to prove that he was serious about his intentions to take out innocents for every ten minutes that passed without the club delivering her up.
And the Iron Cross had been the ones to send that asshole their way.
Dare shifted uncomfortably in his chair, whether from his injuries or his unease at the attention, Maverick didn’t know. Raking a hand through his brown hair, Dare looked down at the table, his brow furrowed. “What we faced at the track that night . . .” He shook his head. “It was unprecedented. And what you did”—he looked up, his dark gaze intense—“what all of you did was above and beyond. It—”
“No, D,” Meat said, looking the club’s president in the eyes. “It was exactly what we should’ve done. Exactly what we should always do. Nothing more.”
The visible emotion on Dare’s face reached inside Maverick’s chest. Because he couldn’t agree with Meat more. Maverick only wished that he could’ve gotten to Dare to shield him from those bullets, or at the very least gotten to Haven before she’d been forced to kill her own father to protect them both. And God knew he wished he could’ve kept his mother from getting hurt. Mav knew that his cousin was shouldering a shitload of guilt over all the people who’d been hurt that night. They were alike that way. Not that Maverick thought any of it was Dare’s fault, because it wasn’t.
Only two groups were to blame. Haven’s father’s crew, who were all either dead or in jail. And the Iron Cross.
Sitting at the far end of the table, Doc nodded. “Meat’s got it right. This is a family. And every man here is your brother. You can always count on us having your back. And that goes for everyone here. That’s what the Raven Riders are about. That’s why we exist.” Frank “Doc” Kenyon was Dare’s grandfather, the club’s founder, and co-owner with Dare of the Ravens’ property, which the older man had inherited decades before. Doc was also Mav’s uncle. With whitish hair and beard that made him a shoo-in for playing Santa for the kids among the club members’ families, Doc was fiercely protective of the club and everyone in it.
So Dare came by that naturally. Mav did, too.
“That’s right,” Maverick said. “Now we focus on getting justice for Jeb and for everyone else who got hurt.” Murmurs of agreement circled the room. And even though his focus needed to be right here on these men, he couldn’t help but think of Alexa. Because she’d been hurt, too. And Maverick hadn’t yet thought of a way to make that right for her. It was eating at him like an itch he couldn’t reach.
“Which brings me to some news from Baltimore,” Dare said, opening the folder of intel Maverick had received from Nick Rixey. “Off the record, Nick shared that the Feds are running some kind of undercover operation targeting Baltimore’s gangs. Ongoing investigations into narcotics and especially heroin. Long story short, in the week since everything went down, the Feds have tightened the noose around the Iron Cross as the primary player in that market, so it’s very possible the Feds are about to take them out all on their own.”
“Well, that’s . . . kinda fucking unsatisfying,” Phoenix said.
“‘Possible’ isn’t good enough for me,” Maverick said. “And letting the Feds do it does nothing for avenging ourselves and defending our reputation.”
“I agree on both counts,” Dare said.
Doc sat forward in his seat. “Given everything this club’s been through the past six weeks, first with the fight over at Hard Ink and then with the attack here, we do not need more good people put in harm’s way.” He’d been leery of getting involved with the Iron Cross in the first place. Well, they all had. Maverick sure knew he’d been. But those motherfuckers hadn’t given them much choice if they didn’t want to make an enemy of a new player in the region. Turned out they had anyway. Which pretty much proved that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. “I get that the Iron Cross is a problem that has to be resolved, but if someone else is willing to do the dirty work, I say we let them.”
“All due respect, Doc,” Maverick said, the anger inside of him hot and thick like the June night outside. “We sit back, even if the Feds do their job here, we pretty much invite every other fucker who wants to make a name for themselves to do it on our backs. They invaded our territory. Attacked our home. Hurt and killed our people.”
“I agree with Maverick,” Caine McKannon said, his ice-blue eyes slicing toward Dare. Low murmurs of agreement rumbled around the room. Wearing a black knit cap over black hair and with black gauges in both his ears, Caine served as the club’s sergeant-at-arms, which put him in charge of rule enforcement. The guy radiated a quiet intensity you didn’t want to cross. Maverick had never heard the guy raise his voice, and could only imagine what kind of pissed off he’d have to be to do so. Of the six men who made up the club’s board of directors—Dare, Maverick, Bear, Phoenix, their Race Captain Jagger Locke, and Caine—Caine was by far the one Maverick knew the least, despite having known him for years.
“So, what are we talking about here?” Phoenix asked, face set into an unusually serious frown.
Considering glances were traded around the table until Dare finally spoke. “Here’s what I suggest. We’re not typically into offensive assaults. But we have to assume that the Iron Cross will keep coming at us, because they made it clear they want to push us around until they push us out as a player in the power dynamics in this area. In my view, going after them would be a defensive preemptive strike.” More murmurs of agreement. “I say we make a statement that hurts them where they live—we attack their clubhouse, clean them out until they’re left with nothing, and then burn their world to the ground. And if that sonofabitch of a leader Dominic gets in the way, so much the better.”
“And how do you think Haven will feel about you doing that?” Doc asked.
Dare’s dark gaze cut to meet his grandfather’s. “This is club business, Doc. But if you really want to know, I told her this was the likely reality. Don’t think for a minute she doesn’t understand our world after the one she grew up in, nor that this is still her father’s mess that needs to be cleaned up. She’d be on the back of a Harley helping us do it if she could. Haven Randall is a hundred percent behind every one of us. Always.”
Maverick surveyed his brothers’ faces and saw the bone-deep respect they held for Haven. By saving Dare’s life, she’d more than earned it.
“So we’re going after property, not bodies,” Phoenix said, eyebrow arched.